


coffee, please

by mearcats



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff, Graduate School, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 01:30:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15207845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mearcats/pseuds/mearcats
Summary: Grad student AU in which Lucy is under-caffeinated and Flynn is very bad at flirting.





	coffee, please

Lucy is sitting in the lounge, staring blankly into space. It’s early, way too early to effectively concentrate on postcolonial theories of empire. Especially since her coffee maker had the audacity to _die_ this morning.

 

Fuck, she needs caffeine. She still has forty minutes until class begins, but normally she stops by her office for a few minutes and then gets to the classroom early.

 

Maybe she can get a soda from one of the vending machines. She’s about to head down the hallway when the doorway is blocked by the mountain that is Garcia Flynn.

 

Flynn is, as established, a giant of a man (a lovely, Croatian giant at that, she thinks). He’s in his last year of his PhD program, and he has a truly impressive number of publications. He’s probably going to be able to skip over the whole post-doc thing and immediately land something fabulous. It’s intimidating.

 

And he confuses the fuck out of her. They don’t have much professional overlap, as she’s focusing on American political history and he’s an expert on modern warfare, but somehow he manages to undermine her at parties and departmental barbecues. He’s a know-it-all about everything, including _her_ area of research. Then he goes and does nice things for her, like running to make copies of Dr. Christopher’s exam for her in the sociology department when she’s panicking because the history copier gives up the ghost and she has less than an hour to get it done. She doesn’t have to ask, he just goes. And of course, there was the time at the bar that that smarmy criminal justice professor had been creeping on her, and Garcia had just come over and...loomed. The professor had fled, and Flynn had just smiled at her and handed her a beer. All of that is on top of always managing to enquire about her day, her classes, her research.

 

She really isn’t sure what to think of him.

 

He sees her and stops still, nodding in greeting and shooting her a small smile.

 

Lucy has the feeling she should greet him, or at least try to get past him. But she’s so tired, so instead she just yawns.

 

That seems to spur him into action and into the lounge. “Good morning, Lucy. Are—how are you doing today?” He’s looking at her intently and seems concerned.

 

“Not bad, just tired. Going to head to the vending machine for a soda so I can get caffeine. The sugar’ll probably help too,” she says, heading toward the hall.

 

Flynn grabs her arm gently when she passes him. “Do—wouldyouliketogetcoffee?” he says in a rush, and he sounds breathless.

 

Adorable as his accent is, it takes a moment to register. She wrinkles her brow. Didn’t she just say what she was planning to get? “No, I’ll just stick to a soda. Gotta get that sugar, you know!” She squeezes past him, noticing out of the corner of her eye that he is strangely still until his shoulders slump.

 

&&&

 

When she gets back to the lounge five minutes later, Flynn is gone. She doesn’t think anything of it then, content to drink her two cans of soda before class and her other responsibilities.

 

It’s a few days later when Lucy starts to wonder what’s up.

 

Normally, he pops his head into her office during her office hours, makes some _stupid_ history joke, says hello, and occasionally insults her research. But she hasn’t seen him in days, since...huh.

 

Since that weird moment a few days ago, she realizes.

 

Now that she has a functioning coffee maker and is thus operating at functional levels of caffeination on a regular basis, she does think the whole thing strange, even for Flynn.

 

Lucy finally mentions it to Jiya Marri, her friend and Flynn’s office mate.

 

Jiya’s a genuine genius, what with getting some crazy double PhD in both computer science and history. She’s only twenty-four, but she’s level-headed and dedicated. She’s on good terms with even the more difficult people in the department (which, yes, Lucy admits, can sometimes include Flynn). She’s also dating one of Lucy’s roommates, Rufus, who studies something very theoretical that she doesn’t really understand, in spite of Rufus’ attempts to explain it with Star Wars analogies.

 

Surely Jiya will have at least some idea of what’s off, or at least be able to tell her she’s imagining things.

 

She and Jiya are in the lounge together, quietly reading articles and eating their lunches when she finally has a chance to bring it up. “Jiya?”

 

“Mhmm?”

 

She bites at her lip, unsure of how to phrase her question. “So, uh, is Flynn okay?”

 

“Yeah…” Jiya’s voice trailed off in a question. “I mean, he’s been a little quiet and broody, but that’s par for the course. Why?”

 

“Uh, so something weird happened a few days ago,” Lucy says, going on to explain her last encounter with Flynn.

 

By the time Lucy finishes recounting the story, Jiya sets down her laptop to stare at her. “Uh, Luce, you do realize he was asking you out, right?”

 

“What? No, that can’t b—” She cuts herself off, horror rising in her throat. “Oh my god.”

 

“Lucy, do you realize—”

 

“That I was a complete asshole to him? It’s starting to occur to me!” She’s starting to panic.

 

Jiya gives her an exasperated look. “How did this even happen?”

 

 _Jesus_. Flynn can be an asshole, but he can also be really sweet. To her, at least. And she wouldn’t turn him down like _that_ , even if she actually wanted to.

 

She starts at the realization that she doesn’t want to turn him down. She isn’t sure what she feels, but there’s _something_. She’s intrigued, for sure.

 

Right, answering Jiya’s question. “Exhaustion and accents?”

 

She snorts and smirks. “Okay, but seriously, Lucy?!”

 

Lucy drops her head into her hands. “I know, I know! I’m an idiot.”

 

“I mean, to be fair, he’s awful at flirting, so this isn’t all on you. I think this is probably the first time he’s tried flirting since he lost his wife and daughter.”

 

“That just makes this worse, Jiya!” Her voice is high and shrill, and she kind of wants to dissolve into the couch.

 

Jiya grimaces. “It’s not great, honestly.”

 

“What do I do?” Lucy asks, sighing plaintively.

 

“That is indeed the question,” she says, cocking her head at Lucy. “What do you want to do?”

 

&&&

 

It’s finally Friday.

 

Lucy hadn’t planned on having such a ridiculous week when she agreed to host this little house party. Well, it was _supposed_ to be little.

 

Now there are sixty people packed into the small house she shares with her roommates Rufus and Wyatt. She has no idea who most of them are, but it appears nearly the entirety of the history department is here, along with some Rufus’ and Jiya’s friends.

 

Flynn is here. It’s impossible to miss him, giant that he is. He did manage to sneak in without her noticing, but afterward she nearly ran into him headlong and he scurried away before saying a word to her.

 

She sighs. Audibly. Deciding she’ll try to talk to him, she edges through the crowd.

 

He’s standing to one side of the living area, head moving to the beat of the music while he drinks his beer. He looks good, even if he is brooding in the middle of a party. He makes eye contact with her and...visibly panics. He turns quickly to the person on the other side of him and immediately starts talking to them.

 

Lucy recognizes it as his attempt at flirting, such as it is. The poor girl (Lucy thinks she’s a first-year from bio) looks frightened, and something in Lucy’s chest tightens. The girl nods, but tries to back away. Flynn just looks uncomfortable, but is determinedly ignoring her.

 

She finally reaches them and nods at the girl—Sarah?—before turning to Flynn and placing a hand on his forearm. Maybe-Sarah nods back at Lucy and takes the opportunity to head away to the kitchen.

 

“Flynn?”

 

“Lucy,” he says, voice clipped. “You interrupted—”

 

She takes a deep breath and smiles up at him, cutting him off mid-sentence, “Do you want to go get coffee with me? Maybe tomorrow?”

 

He stops, mouth gaping.

 

For a moment, Lucy worries she and Jiya have it all wrong. She can feel the heat rising in her cheeks and is on the verge of adding “Professionally!” to her last statement to try salvage it, when Flynn finally reacts. He reaches for the hand still on his arm and squeezes it. “Lucy?”

 

She cranes her neck to look at him. “Yeah?”

 

“I’d love to.”

 

She gives a sigh of relief, and he smiles down at her. “I thought you didn’t—well, I thought you weren’t interested.”

 

It’s her turn to groan, but she squeezes his hand before interlacing their fingers (and she doesn’t miss how thrilled he looks at this development). “Can we just chalk it up to lack of caffeine and a misunderstanding?”

 

He raises an eyebrow, still looking a little puzzled, but agrees.

 

They’re still holding hands, earning them a few surprised looks, but Lucy finds she doesn’t mind.

 

After all, she has a coffee date.

  
  
  



End file.
